


warning shots

by crickets



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:53:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	warning shots

Brad hovers.

It's what he does.

_Mama fucking Colbert._

Hasser, did you eat? Did you sleep? Did you take a goddamn shit?

Christ, Walt's surprised Brad hasn't offered to jerk them all off when morale gets low. _Not that he would mind._

And it's not that he does. _Mind_. After all the fuck-ups? They're all just pussy-footing around the truth that nobody knows what the hell is going on, and the people who do are damn idiots. And, so okay, it's nice. To have a team leader who cares; who's competent. Thing is, Walt doesn't like to cause trouble, doesn't want to be one more dump on top of the never-ending mountain of shit that Brad's gotta deal with.

He can take care of himself.

So when Colbert hounds him that day about not getting any sleep, he just tells him, _"I'm okay, Brad."_ I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay.

_Things were getting to him._

But things were getting to everybody. He's no different. No more special. You just gotta barrel on, do your job, try not to get killed, and worry about making sense of it all later.

_After it's over._

-

Later, when he pulls the trigger and Brad's voice is coming down on him, shouting and angry, and _Oh, God, he fucked up,_ ; there's nothing he can do. He can't go back. Was it Ray who reminded Trombley that once you pull the trigger you can't undo it? Why can't he remember now? And why didn't he listen _then_? Before it was too late?

 _He zones out_.

Brad's hand is on his shoulder and he pushes Walt back into the Humvee and he looks at him like he's going to break, and maybe he is. _After all._ But he doesn't. He breathes and he loosens his grip on his gun and he tries to ignore the dead man in the street and the comments from the peanut gallery, and instead he just focuses on Brad; calm, concerned, grave.

_Mama fucking Colbert._

-

This is later, after everybody's just about forgotten about that day. But Walt hasn't. He can't.

_Maybe he wasn't made for this._

The others can detach... let go. But Walt? Not so much.

"Maybe what?"

"What?"

"Hasser, when you mumble like that, I can't hear a fucking word you're saying." Brad's sitting next to him in the grass and he's cleaning his gun and their knees are touching and Walt didn't even realize he was talking out loud.

Walt shakes his head, focuses on the work in front of him, the sound of Ray singing Avril fucking Lavigne behind them.

"It was nothing, sir," he tells him. _Nothing at all._

_fin._  



End file.
